"There were, however, luxuries even in that day," he continued. "Maple sugar was made by all the settlers, some families putting down as much as seven hundred pounds in a season. There were no apples, but there was something else just as good. The pumpkin bee was a social function, and lads and lassies gathered from miles around to peel and string pumpkins for drying, just as those of a later generation had their apple-paring bees. And what delicious pies those dried pumpkins did make!"

Hunting was a source of pleasure as well as of profit to the pioneers. Cyrus Davidson, a celebrated marksman of the pioneer period, brought down seven deer in one day, and Mr. Powers' father shot one hundred and nineteen in all, his one great regret being that he was not able to make it the even one hundred and twenty.

But the dancing! "Once," Mr. Powers resumed, "when father, my brother, and myself were on our way home from Port Hope we stopped at a hotel where a dance was in progress. The landlord told us to join in. Scarcely had we entered the room when two girls came up and invited us to be their partners. (We did not wait for introductions in those days.) The dance was the 'opera reel,' with girls on one side and boys on the other in parallel lines. It was while holding opposite lines that the fancy steps were put in. My brother was one of the best fancy dancers I have ever seen, and after the girls saw how he could `step it off' we had no lack of partners for the rest of the evening. I sometimes served as fiddler at local dances, and even yet I can see the bright-eyed girls, clad